Yoshihiro Tatsumi

(10 June 1935 - 7 March 2015, Japan)

Yoshihiro Tatsumi is the initiator of the Japanese graphic novel, called the gekiga style ("dramatic pictures"). His comics deal with the human mind and condition, especially in the working class society, such as his 1956 thriller 'Black Blizzard', about two escaped convicts, and 'Goodbye', a story about occupied Japan. From 2005, Canadian publisher Drawn & Quarterly started to publish Tatsumi's works in annual anthologies, edited by Adrian Tomine. The first book was 'The Push Man and other stories', collecting his work from 1969.

In 2009, Tatsumi was awarded the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize for his autobiography, 'A Drifting Life'. A full-length animated feature on the life and short stories of Yoshihiro Tatsumi directed by Eric Khoo was released in 2011. He died of cancer at the age of 79 on 7 March 2015.